P 123

MASTERY IN THEORIES OF PERSONALITY/DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

MODULE 01
Influences on Development/Contexts of Development/The Life-Span Developmental
Approach
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

 Explain the factors that influences human development.

 Identify the life-span development in given situation.

INFLUENCES ON DEVELOPMENT
 Heredity consists of the inborn traits and characteristics provided by a child’s biological
parents.
 Environment is the nonhereditary, or experiential, influences on development.
 Maturation is the unfolding of a natural sequence of physical and behavioral changes.
Typical changes during early childhood such as abilities to walk and talk, are tied to
maturation of the body and brain. Maturation continues to influence certain biological
processes, such as brain development.
 Individual Differences are the differences in characteristics, influences, or
developmental outcomes. Every individual has a unique developmental trajectory.

On Nature VS. Nurture

The influence of nature (heredity and biological processes) and nurture (environmental
influences) is fiercely debated. Researches and modern scientists pointed out that almost
all characteristics points to a blend of inheritance and experience. For an instance, even
though an individual’s intelligence is strongly influenced by heredity, it is also affected
by environmental factors such as parental stimulation, education, and peer influence.

CONTEXTS OF DEVELOPMENT
 Family
- The nuclear family is a household unit which consists of one or two parents and
their children, whether biological, adopted, or step children.
- The extended family is a multigenerational kinship network of parents, children,
and other relatives, sometimes living together in an extended-family household.
 Socioeconomic Status is the combination of economic and social factors describing an
individual or family, including income, education, and occupation.
- Poverty is a problem worldwide. Poverty is stressful and can damage children’s
and families’ physical, cognitive, and psychosocial well-being. (Schickedanz,
Dreyer, & Halfon, 2015).
- Positive development can still occur despite serious risk factors. For example,
factors such as supportive parenting (Moris et al., 2017; Brody et al., 2017) or
particular temperament profiles can buffer children against ill effects, (Moran et
al., 2017)
 Culture and Race/Ethnicity
- Culture refers to a society’s group’s total way of life, including customs,
traditions, beliefs, values, language, and physical products--all learned behavior,
passed on from parents to children.
- Ethnic group consists of people united by a distinctive culture, ancestry, religion,
language, or national origin, all of which contribute to a sense of shared identity
and shared attitudes, beliefs, and values.
Ethnic and cultural patterns affect development by their influence on the composition of
household, its economic and social resources, the way its members act toward one another,
the food they eat, how well they do in school, the occupations adults engage in, and the way
family members think and perceive the world (Parke, 2004).
- Race is popularly viewed as an identifiable biological category, but is more
accurately defined as social construct.
There are important differences in outward appearance of people from different geographical
regions; for instance, the different skin color of people from northern Europe countries and
from Africa and Asia.
 Historical Context – developmentalists focus on how certain experiences, tied to time
and place, affect the course of people’s live.
THE LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH
Paul Baltes and his colleagues (Baltes & Smith, 2004) have identified seven key
principles of a life-span development approach. These principles serve as a widely
accepted conceptual framework for the study of life-span development:
1. Development is Lifelong
Development is a lifelong process of change. Each period of the life span is affected
by what happened before and will affect what is to come.
2. Development is Multidimensional
It occurs along multiple interacting dimensions – biological, psychological, and social
—each of which may develop at varying rates.
3. Development is Multidirectional
As people gain in one area, they may lose in another, sometimes at the same time. For
example, some abilities such as vocabulary, often continue to increase throughout
most of adulthood; others, such as the ability to solve unfamiliar problems, may
diminish; but some new attributes, such as wisdom, may increase with age.
 4. Relative influences of biology and culture shift over the life span
The process of development is influenced by both biology and culture, but the
balance between these influence changes. Biological abilities, such as muscle strength
and coordination, weaken with age, but cultural supports, such as education and
technologically age-friendly environments, may help compensate.
5. Development involves changing resource allocations
Individual choose to invest their resources of time, energy, talent, money, and social
support in varying ways.
6. Development shows plasticity
Many abilities, such as memory, strength, and endurance, can be improved
significantly with training and practice, even late in life.
7. Development is influenced by the historical and cultural context
Each person develops within multiple contexts—circumstances or conditions defined
in part by maturation and in part by time and place. Human beings not only influence
but also are influenced by their historical-cultural context.

References:
Baltes, P.B., & Smith, J. (2004). Lifespan psychology: From developmental contextualism to
developmental biocultural co-constructivism. Research in Human Development, 1, 123-144.
Brody, G.H., Gray, J.C., Yu, T., Barton, A.W., Beach, S.R., Galvan, A., & Sweet, L. H. (2017).
Protective prevention effects on the association of poverty with brain development. JAMA
Pediatrics. 171(1), 46-52.
Moran, L., Lengua, L.J., Zalewski, M., Ruberry, E., Klein, M., Thompson, S., & Kiff, C. (2017). Variable
and person-centered approaches to examining temperament vulnerability and resilience to the
effects of contextual risk. Journal of Research in Personality, 67, 61-74.
Moris, A. S., Robinson, L. R., Hays-Grudo, J., Claussen, A. H., Hartwig, S. A., & Treat, A. E. (2017).
Targeting parenting in early childhood: A public health approach to improve outcomes for children
living in poverty. Child Development, 88(2), 388-397.
Papalia, D., & Matorell, G. (2021). Experience human development. USA: McGraw-Hill
Parke, R. D. (2004). The Society for Research in Child Development at 70: Progress and promise. Child
Development, 75, 1-24.
Schickedanz, A., Dreyer, B.P., & Halfon, N. (2015). Childhood poverty: Understanding and preventing
the adverse impacts of a most-prevalent risk to pediatric health and well-being. Pediatric Clinics,
62(5), 1111-135.